Home » Bolsonaro wins in Brazil

Comments

Bolsonaro wins in Brazil — 27 Comments

  1. Not surprisingly, Venezuela was an issue in the campaign. Former President Lula, now jailed for Petrobras corruption, was definitely a buddy of Hugo Chavez, though it might seem that was in large part for all the juicy contracts Brazilian firms could get in Chavezueala. Bolsonaro was running against Haddad, the candidate of Lula’s Workers’ Party. From The Guardian: The new Venezuela? Brazil populist Bolsonaro’s scare tactic gains traction.

    The far-right candidate has sought, with little evidence, to link his Worker’s party opponent to Brazil’s neighbour’s troubles…
    “IS BRAZIL FREE FROM BECOMING THE VENEZUELA OF TOMORROW?” the far-right populist tweeted alongside a link to his politically charged flick, produced in partnership with his politician son Eduardo Bolsonaro.
    Jair Bolsonaro’s push for power has been turbocharged by a duo of contemporary Brazilian bugbears: fear of an intensifying murder crisis that last year claimed nearly 64,000 lives and fury at extreme levels of corruption.

    But a third, increasingly dominant, theme has also emerged in his fight for the presidency: the crisis in Venezuela and Bolsonaro’s oft-repeated allegation that his Workers’ party (PT) opponent, Fernando Haddad, will inflict similar pain on Brazil.

    Hardly an interview or public declaration now goes by without Bolsonaro name-dropping Brazil’s crisis-stricken South American neighbour.

    According to The Guardian, this is all a smear campaign against the Worker’s Party. The Workers’ Party, The Guardian informs us, has nothing to do with Maduro and Venezuela. After all, Lula never had anything to do with Chavez; 🙂 In defense of the Guardian’s claim, Haddad, as far as I can tell, has been fairly quiet about Venezuela. Rather like Bernie Sanders was quiet about Venezuela during his Presidential campaign, though there was an endorsement of Chavezuela on his Senate website from 2011.

    However, Gleisi Hoffmann, the head of the Workers’ Party, made a rather strong statement last year in support of Maduro. Why does Brazil’s Workers’ Party still support the Maduro regime in Venezuela? She was quoted last year at the Forum of São Paolo in Managua:

    “The PT expresses its support and solidarity with the government of the PSUV, its allies and President Nicolás Maduro in the face of the violent right-wing offensive against the Venezuelan government and condemns the recent terrorist attack against the Supreme Court. We expect the Constituent Assembly to contribute to an ever greater consolidation of the Bolivarian revolution and that political differences will be solved peacefully.

    (PT= Brazilian Worker’s Party; PSUV- Venezuelan Chavista party.)

    Which is why Bolsonaro had some success in pushing Venezuela in the campaign.

    The Guardian made a comparison between the Brazilian and Colombian Presidential campaigns this year. Venezuela was also an issue in the Colombian Presidential race.

    Similar claims were used against Colombia’s defeated leftwing presidential hopeful Gustavo Petro, who was routinely – and inaccurately – described as an agent of “castrochavismo”.

    Gustavo Petro was a member of the guerrilla group M-19, which received aid from Castro in the 1980s, so it was quite accurate to point out that Petro used to belong to a guerrilla group that acted as an agent of Castro. Gustavo Petro called Chavez a “great Latin American leader.” Petro tweeted support of the July 2017 Constituent Assembly “election” in Venezuela- the one where Smartmatic stated there were at least a million fraudulent votes.

  2. Mary Anastasia O’Grady had this to say at the WSJ.

    Lula is, after all, a founding member of Foro de São Paulo, where Latin American socialists first gathered in 1990 to mourn the fall of the Berlin Wall.

    The PT hasn’t taken responsibility for the economic crackup or apologized for the graft. Lula has shown no remorse, which adds insult to economic misery. There was a feeling that if the PT returned to power, it would pick up where it left off.

    This goes a long way in explaining the Bolsonaro phenomenon.

    She goes on to say the that his “tough on crime” stance will be very difficult against the very powerful organized crime syndicates. Also, he likes some state owned enterprises and some economic nationalism, but O’Grady says the economic reforms are now possible that could only be dreamed of before.

  3. What are the odds that someone will again try assassinating him?
    Corruption + socialism = big money at stake.

  4. test

    I was testing to see if I got the edit option, and I did. I’m not sure what the problem is for those of you who aren’t getting it. Let me know if it continues.

  5. The leftists of South America’s attempts to distance themselves from Venezuela, Maduro, and Chavez are not succeeding because the evidence of alliance was too recent and too obvious for the public to miss. It is my hope that the opportunity afforded to the Right to put sound economic policies in place is not squandered by their own abuses of power.

    The correct policy of the U.S. is to build alliances in LatAm based on institutions of democracy and not based on personal connections.

    FYI: I just added this with the edit function.

  6. It is my hope that the opportunity afforded to the Right to put sound economic policies in place is not squandered by their own abuses of power.

    Forget it, Jake, it’s LatinAmericaTown.

    (I’ll be very happily surprised to be wrong, though.)

  7. neo on October 28, 2018 at 10:30 pm at 10:30 pm said:
    test

    I was testing to see if I got the edit option, and I did. I’m not sure what the problem is for those of you who aren’t getting it. Let me know if it continues.
    * * *
    I have noticed that the problem is intermittent: sometimes you get the edit function; sometimes, you don’t. No clue yet what triggers the difference. Software-wise, I would look for a module that has different access points, with some parameters not being set correctly on one of them.

    (and I did get the edit on this comment)

  8. what about this one?
    (still okay)

    “This has only been a test. In the event of a real emergency, your computer will die.”

  9. I don’t know if Bolsonaro is the man to reverse course in Brazil, but if he can move Brazil in the right direction, it will be huge good news for the continent and for the hemisphere.

    (I almost always see the edit function, and did this time.)

  10. It is not, most emphatically not a “roll of the dice”, as Neo puts it.
    A shift in direction towards economic sense and rule of law is not a “roll”, a chance, a risk. The dice rolls are reserved for those who believe in the Bernies, Chavezes, Obamas, Clintons. Afterwards, always asked after such a a dice roll is “What happened? Why are we in a ditch?” “Because you are gullible suckers” is the correct answer.

  11. Brazil is following a pattern we also see in Europe. They have not seen the immigrant crisis that Europe has but they might be a target for Venezuelans who can get that far,

  12. Latin American countries have a menu of persistent problems, but no. 1 is street crime. I’d have to check, but I’d wager that responsibility for crime control is with provincial and local government in Brazil. The central government’s contribution would be a crackdown on racketeering, drug trafficking, and local police corruption, as well as promotional activities and amendments to provincial and local government finance.

    As long as cities and counties are properly financed and have optimal boundaries, the principal contribution of superordinate layers of government should be to see to it that the courts are properly staffed and moving the traffick along, to see to it that the prisons have ample plant, equipment, and staff, and to see to it that local police have technical assistance beneficial to them.

  13. Perhaps I am being over optimistic, but I sense a Republican wave coming this November, voters moving toward Capitalism and not Communism,.

    This sense based, in large part, on popular enthusiasm, on the huge numbers of people attending Trump rallies, and waiting many hours in line just for a chance to get into the building.

    People this determined, it would seem to me, are likely to vote.

    Meanwhile, Obama–out campaigning for Democrat candidates–has trouble filling the bleachers in a high school gym.

    Then there is the #Walkaway movement, and now Blaxit.

    BTW–I just stumbled on some extremely powerful political videos by the very eloquent former Louisiana State Senator Elbert Guillory, a 74 year old black attorney, minister, and Democrat who “changed” to become a Republican.

    Here’s Guillory on American Slavery http://elbertguillorysamerica.com/articles/Elbert-on-American-slavery

    See also https://elbertguillorysamerica.com and his other youtube videos about his political philosophy

  14. The “ancient regime” is crumbling everywhere. In LatAm it is a very ancient, indeed. It is a continuation of the Roman Empire, with its system of patronage, when 200-300 families are running the state for generations. It is called Mafia rule in Sicily and Southern Italy, or corruption, but really this is the way nations are ruled in all remnants of the Roman Empire, including its colonies in Latin America, Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, Spain and Portugal.

  15. Roy Nathanson:
    The threat to Brazil from their northern neighbor’s misery was probably a factor in the election.

    In the recent Colombian presidential election, 2018, lefty candidate Gustavo Petro did best in the Departments that were farthest from Colombia.
    Putumayo 69.6% inland border w Ecuador
    Cauca 65% SW on Pacific Ocean, one Department away from Ecuador
    Nariño 63.9% on Pacific Ocean, borders Ecuador.

    Gustavo Petro’s worst showing was in Norte de Santander Department, where he got 18% of the vote. Not only does Norte de Santander border Venezuela, its capital city of Cúcuta has Colombia’s main border crossing with Venezuela.

  16. ndeed. It is a continuation of the Roman Empire, with its system of patronage, when 200-300 families are running the state for generations.

    There are 20 Latin American countries. Their median population is about 15 million. Which of them do you fancy is being run by 250 families? Can you name any of the families?

  17. To Art Deco: Every one of them. Different families for different countries, of course. The names of the families involved is better to ask from local people, they know them for sure. In Bulgaria I know the local Don in charge of the whole town where I own a flat.

  18. Sergey
    The “ancient regime” is crumbling everywhere. In LatAm it is a very ancient, indeed. It is a continuation of the Roman Empire, with its system of patronage, when 200-300 families are running the state for generations.

    That depends. In Colombia, pretty much so, I would believe. In Venezuela, not so, as government access to oil revenue has churned things up in the last century. Chile is an interesting case. Yes, there is more family control of big corporations than in the US. However, this is far from a closed-off elite. In looking at the wealthiest families in Chile, there are quite a few non-Spanish family surnames- the surnames of immigrants.

    Forbes 2016 World’s Billionaires: Meet The Richest People in Chile,

    1. Iris Fontbona… inherited mining assets from her late husband Andrónico Luksic.
    2. Horst Paulmann..As a teenager, Paulmann moved from his native Germany to Chile after World War II and opened his first supermarket in 1976.
    3. Sebastián Piñera
    4. Bernardo Matte inherited what is today Chile’s largest pulp and paper producer, Empresas CMPC, from their father, Eliodoro Matte Ossa
    5. Eliodoro Matte
    6. Patricia Matte
    7. Alvaro Saieh Bendeck
    8. Julio Ponce Once the son-in-law of the late Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, Julio Ponce Lerou derives his fortune from his stake in Sociedad de Quimica y Minera de Chile (SQM), a publicly traded company privatized by Pinochet’s government in the 1980s.
    9. Roberto Angelini Rossi
    10. Luis Enrique Yarur Rey..The bank was founded by the Yarur family in 1937.

    Juan Yarur Lolas

    He was the co-founder of Banco de Crédito e Inversiones in 1937,[1] and he served as its president from 1946 to 1954.[2] The bank is still owned by his descendants.[1]
    Yarur was the president of the Arab colony in Santiago, Chile.

    Matte family

    The Matte family’s rise to power began in the 19th century when Francisco Javier Matte and his wife opened a textile store in downtown Santiago. In 1855 their son Domingo (who fathered 16 children) opened a bank in Valparaíso with two of his sons, Augusto and Eduardo.

    Eliodoro Matte Ossa: owner ( AND FOUNDER) of the Compañía Manufacturera de Papeles y Cartones paper mill (La Papelera) who famously protested President Allende’s attempt to nationalize it,

    Another famous family in Chile is the Alessandri family, which includes two presidents. Italian immigrant family. Jorge Alessandri was President of Chile from 1958-1864. He was also Chairman of the Board of Compañía Manufacturera de Papeles y Cartones paper mill (La Papelera) -Matte’s company-when Allende was trying to nationalize it.

    While Sebastián Piñera has deep roots in the Chilean establishment- including having Chilean Presidents and an Inca emperor in his family tree, most of his wealth came from his own entrepreneurial efforts beginning with credit cards in the Pinochet era.

    Of the ten-wealthiest, five derived their wealth from those of immigrant background or were immigrants themselves. (Fontbana-Luksic, Paulmann, Saieh Bendeck, Rossi, Yarur Ray). The Matte family began its wealth with a textile store in Santiago in the 1850s, so they were hardly wealthy grandees in origin.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>